A 10-year follow-up study of sex inclusion in the biological sciences

In 2016, to address the historical overrepresentation of male subjects in biomedical research, the US National Institutes of Health implemented a policy requiring investigators to consider sex as a biological variable. In order to assess the impact of this policy, we conducted a bibliometric analysi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published ineLife Vol. 9
Main Authors Woitowich, Nicole C, Beery, Annaliese, Woodruff, Teresa
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England eLife Science Publications, Ltd 09.06.2020
eLife Sciences Publications Ltd
eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Subjects
Analysis
Behavior
Bias
Bibliometrics
Biology
Biomedical Research - standards
Biomedical Research - statistics & numerical data
Discipline
Endocrinology
Female
Females
Follow-Up Studies
Gender differences
Health
Human Biology and Medicine
Humans
Immunology
Male
Males
Medical research
Meta-analysis
Meta-Research
Neurosciences
Pharmacology
Physiology
Sex
sex bias
sex differences
Sex Distribution
sex inclusion
Sexes
human biology
sex bias
meta-research
sex inclusion
meta-analysis
medicine
none
sex differences
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ISSN2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI10.7554/eLife.56344

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Summary:In 2016, to address the historical overrepresentation of male subjects in biomedical research, the US National Institutes of Health implemented a policy requiring investigators to consider sex as a biological variable. In order to assess the impact of this policy, we conducted a bibliometric analysis across nine biological disciplines for papers published in 34 journals in 2019, and compared our results with those of a similar study carried out by Beery and Zucker in 2009. There was a significant increase in the proportion of studies that included both sexes across all nine disciplines, but in eight of the disciplines there was no change in the proportion studies that included data analyzed by sex. The majority of studies failed to provide rationale for single-sex studies or the lack of sex-based analyses, and those that did relied on misconceptions surrounding the hormonal variability of females. Together, these data demonstrate that while sex-inclusive research practices are more commonplace, there are still gaps in analyses and reporting of data by sex in many biological disciplines.
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ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.56344